2 Raja-raja 2:3

2:3 Some members of the prophetic guild ¹  in Bethel came out to Elisha and said, “Do you know that today the Lord is going to take your master from you?” ²  He answered, “Yes, I know. Be quiet.”

2 Raja-raja 2:5

2:5 Some members of the prophetic guild in Jericho approached Elisha and said, “Do you know that today the Lord is going to take your master from you?” He answered, “Yes, I know. Be quiet.”

2 Raja-raja 4:29

4:29 Elisha ³  told Gehazi, “Tuck your robes into your belt, take my staff, ⁴  and go! Don’t stop to exchange greetings with anyone! ⁵  Place my staff on the child’s face.”

2 Raja-raja 4:42

Elisha Miraculously Feeds a Hundred People

4:42 Now a man from Baal Shalisha brought some food for the prophet ⁶  – twenty loaves of bread made from the firstfruits of the barley harvest, as well as fresh ears of grain. ⁷  Elisha ⁸  said, “Set it before the people so they may eat.”

2 Raja-raja 6:20

6:20 When they had entered Samaria, Elisha said, “O Lord, open their eyes, so they can see.” The Lord opened their eyes and they saw that they were in the middle of Samaria. ⁹ 

2 Raja-raja 7:15

7:15 So they tracked them ¹⁰  as far as the Jordan. The road was filled with clothes and equipment that the Syrians had discarded in their haste. ¹¹  The scouts ¹²  went back and told the king.

2 Raja-raja 8:1

Elisha Again Helps the Shunammite Woman

8:1 Now Elisha advised the woman whose son he had brought back to life, “You and your family should go and live somewhere else for a while, ¹³  for the Lord has decreed that a famine will overtake the land for seven years.”

2 Raja-raja 8:5

8:5 While Gehazi ¹⁴  was telling the king how Elisha ¹⁵  had brought the dead back to life, the woman whose son he had brought back to life came to ask the king for her house and field. ¹⁶  Gehazi said, “My master, O king, this is the very woman and this is her son whom Elisha brought back to life!”

2 Raja-raja 8:21

8:21 Joram ¹⁷  crossed over to Zair with all his chariots. The Edomites, who had surrounded him, attacked at night and defeated him and his chariot officers. ¹⁸  The Israelite army retreated to their homeland. ¹⁹ 

2 Raja-raja 8:29

8:29 King Joram returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds he received from the Syrians ²⁰  in Ramah when he fought against King Hazael of Syria. King Ahaziah son of Jehoram of Judah went down to visit ²¹  Joram son of Ahab in Jezreel, for he was ill.

2 Raja-raja 9:14-15

9:14 Then Jehu son of Jehoshaphat son of Nimshi conspired against Joram.

Jehu the Assassin

Now Joram had been in Ramoth Gilead with the whole Israelite army, ²²  guarding against an invasion by King Hazael of Syria. 9:15 But King Joram had returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds he received from the Syrians ²³  when he fought against King Hazael of Syria. ²⁴  Jehu told his supporters, ²⁵  “If you really want me to be king, ²⁶  then don’t let anyone escape from the city to go and warn Jezreel.”

2 Raja-raja 13:23

13:23 But the Lord had mercy on them and felt pity for them. ²⁷  He extended his favor to them ²⁸  because of the promise he had made ²⁹  to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He has been unwilling to destroy them or remove them from his presence to this very day. ³⁰ 

2 Raja-raja 14:9

14:9 King Jehoash of Israel sent this message back to King Amaziah of Judah, “A thornbush in Lebanon sent this message to a cedar in Lebanon, ‘Give your daughter to my son as a wife.’ Then a wild animal ³¹  of Lebanon came by and trampled down the thorn. ³² 

2 Raja-raja 17:4

17:4 The king of Assyria discovered that Hoshea was planning a revolt. ³³  Hoshea had sent messengers to King So ³⁴  of Egypt and had not sent his annual tribute to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria arrested him and imprisoned him. ³⁵ 

2 Raja-raja 18:4

18:4 He eliminated the high places, smashed the sacred pillars to bits, and cut down the Asherah pole. ³⁶  He also demolished the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for up to that time ³⁷  the Israelites had been offering incense to it; it was called Nehushtan. ³⁸ 

2 Raja-raja 18:22

18:22 Perhaps you will tell me, ‘We are trusting in the Lord our God.’ But Hezekiah is the one who eliminated his high places and altars and then told the people of Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You must worship at this altar in Jerusalem.’

2 Raja-raja 20:1

Hezekiah is Healed

20:1 In those days Hezekiah was stricken with a terminal illness. ³⁹  The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz visited him and told him, “This is what the Lord says, ‘Give your household instructions, for you are about to die; you will not get well.’” ⁴⁰ 

2 Raja-raja 22:3

22:3 In the eighteenth year of King Josiah’s reign, the king sent the scribe Shaphan son of Azaliah, son of Meshullam, to the Lord’s temple with these orders: ⁴¹ 

2 Raja-raja 22:19

22:19 ‘You displayed a sensitive spirit ⁴²  and humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard how I intended to make this place and its residents into an appalling example of an accursed people. ⁴³  You tore your clothes and wept before me, and I have heard you,’ says the Lord.

[2:3]  ¹ tn Heb “the sons of the prophets.”

[2:3]  ² tn Heb “from your head.” The same expression occurs in v. 5.

[4:29]  ³ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[4:29]  ⁴ tn Heb “take my staff in your hand.”

[4:29]  ⁵ tn Heb “If you meet a man, do not greet him with a blessing; if a man greets you with a blessing, do not answer.”

[4:42]  ⁶ tn Heb “man of God.”

[4:42]  ⁷ tn On the meaning of the word צִקְלוֹן (tsiqlon), “ear of grain,” see HALOT 148 s.v. בָּצֵק and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 59.

[4:42]  ⁸ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[6:20]  ⁹ tn Heb “and they saw, and look, [they were] in the middle of Samaria.”

[7:15]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “went after.”

[7:15]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and look, all the road was full of clothes and equipment that Syria had thrown away in their haste.”

[7:15]  ¹² tn Or “messengers.”

[8:1]  ¹³ tn Heb “Get up and go, you and your house, and live temporarily where you can live temporarily.”

[8:5]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Gehazi) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[8:5]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[8:5]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and look, the woman whose son he had brought back to life was crying out to the king for her house and her field.”

[8:5]  sn The legal background of the situation is uncertain. For a discussion of possibilities, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 87-88.

[8:21]  ¹⁷ sn Joram is a short form of the name Jehoram.

[8:21]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and he arose at night and defeated Edom, who had surrounded him, and the chariot officers.” The Hebrew text as it stands gives the impression that Joram was surrounded and launched a victorious night counterattack. It would then be quite natural to understand the last statement in the verse to refer to an Edomite retreat. Yet v. 22 goes on to state that the Edomite revolt was successful. Therefore, if the MT is retained, it may be better to understand the final statement in v. 21 as a reference to an Israelite retreat (made in spite of the success described in the preceding sentence). The translation above assumes an emendation of the Hebrew text. Adding a third masculine singular pronominal suffix to the accusative sign before Edom (reading אֶתוֹ [’eto], “him,” instead of just אֶת [’et]) and taking Edom as the subject of verbs allows one to translate the verse in a way that is more consistent with the context, which depicts an Israelite defeat, not victory. There is, however, no evidence for this emendation.

[8:21]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and the people fled to their tents.”

[8:29]  ²⁰ tn Heb “which the Syrians inflicted [on] him.”

[8:29]  ²¹ tn Heb “to see.”

[9:14]  ²² tn Heb “he and all Israel.”

[9:15]  ²³ tn Heb “which the Syrians inflicted [on] him.”

[9:15]  ²⁴ sn See 2 Kgs 8:28-29a.

[9:15]  ²⁵ tn The words “his supporters” are added for clarification.

[9:15]  ²⁶ tn Heb “If this is your desire.” נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) refers here to the seat of the emotions and will. For other examples of this use of the word, see BDB 660-61 s.v.

[13:23]  ²⁷ tn Or “showed them compassion.”

[13:23]  ²⁸ tn Heb “he turned to them.”

[13:23]  ²⁹ tn Heb “because of his covenant with.”

[13:23]  ³⁰ tn Heb “until now.”

[14:9]  ³¹ tn Heb “the animal of the field.”

[14:9]  ³² sn Judah is the thorn in the allegory. Amaziah’s success has deceived him into thinking he is on the same level as the major powers in the area (symbolized by the cedar). In reality he is not capable of withstanding an attack by a real military power such as Israel (symbolized by the wild animal).

[17:4]  ³³ tn Heb “and the king of Assyria found in Hoshea conspiracy.”

[17:4]  ³⁴ sn For discussion of this name, see HALOT 744 s.v. סוֹא and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 196.

[17:4]  ³⁵ tn Heb “and bound him in the house of confinement.”

[18:4]  ³⁶ tn The term is singular in the MT but plural in the LXX and other ancient versions. It is also possible to regard the singular as a collective singular, especially in the context of other plural items.

[18:4]  sn Asherah was a leading deity of the Canaanite pantheon, wife/sister of El and goddess of fertility. She was commonly worshiped at shrines in or near groves of evergreen trees, or, failing that, at places marked by wooden poles. These were to be burned or cut down (Deut 12:3; 16:21; Judg 6:25, 28, 30; 2 Kgs 18:4).

[18:4]  ³⁷ tn Heb “until those days.”

[18:4]  ³⁸ tn In Hebrew the name sounds like the phrase נְחַשׁ הַנְּחֹשֶׁת (nÿkhash hannÿkhoshet), “bronze serpent.”

[20:1]  ³⁹ tn Heb “was sick to the point of dying.”

[20:1]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “will not live.”

[22:3]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “with these orders, saying.”

[22:19]  ⁴² tn Heb “Because your heart was tender.”

[22:19]  ⁴³ tn Heb “how I said concerning this place and its residents to become [an object of] horror and [an example of] a curse.” The final phrase (“horror and a curse”) refers to Judah becoming a prime example of an accursed people. In curse formulations they would be held up as a prime example of divine judgment. For an example of such a curse, see Jer 29:22.